I was using the swimmable lake method found on MikeInside that involved testingcheatsenabled and lowering the walls of the pool, but with the new pool functions in Nightlife it no longer works- and the surface of the water in my previously built houses is all warped. Furthermore, the water no longer extends to the edges of the lake, because the "square" that used to be the pool area has changed...

Has anyone else noticed this, and perhaps come up with a new solution to the problem?

Ive had that problem to but no luck.Ive tried many ways to fix it but it doesent work

Can anyone still recolor the sides of the pool walls?

I can still recolor the pools.Why cant you?

I haven't checked it with other lots yet- when I tried it with what was once my swimmable lake it got all messed up, but that might be because the height of the wall was not the same everywhere. What about recoloring the diagonals?

I know that there is a way to have them swim in the ground and just paint the terrain, but I don't like that the "water" is opaque

You can put some water in using the water tool and add a diving board or ladder it doesn't look the best but its effective and looks like a kindof sorta lake,I'll maybe look into making a trasparent pool ladder to up the realistic factor.

a transparent pool ladder would definately be VERY useful for this kinda thing...I've done a few swimable lakes in my lots but always think they look daft with a diving board or a pool ladder attatched...would definately add to the realism if it where invisible

Can you really do that with the water tool? I tried to put the diving board and latter over the regular lake before I got NL, and I didn't have any success with it.

Is it possible to place a ladder on a foundation over water? Before, I tried to make something like a diving platform for my swimmable lake, and it looked okay.

You're not alone, some other users interested the pool-lake things are having similar problems...
Now the pool tool is much more like a foundation. Just think of the how foundations behave.

Normally, it takes a floor below for the move-objects-enabled pool accessaries to work. In other words, the pool water surface is actually like an inverted foundation where the sims are doing their swimming animations (connected by pool accessaries but not the pool)

Hmmm... on the upside, I have found a way to have the nightlife neighborhood water flow onto a community lot...

Do tell, Ellatrue I have been wanting to build houses round a lake for ages!

The water tool may work for the look of a pool/lake/or else. Yet, the sims may swim under it if it's too deep. I've still been experimenting with it to see what I can do about it once in a while. The first few ones really suck... and now I'm unsure if this one is getting any better, but I'll, in a few days, release it as an update of a lot I made a while ago (Update: I just updated that lot i'm showing here, and hopefully, it looks well under NL , if not too homely...). I used water tool and pool tool at the same time under the base game TS2 (EP0) to make a swimming region. I'm unsure if it looks good to other people at all, but I'm sure sims can swim in it a little bit lower.

( Update) Here's a screenshot,


It said that in EP02NL, the pool square is eliminated. So, NL-users won't be able to see the pool layers, but hopefully, they can still see the water layers... I've no idea what it looks under NL at all.

You can make a foundation pool instead though if you see fit...

Here

I haven't tried to mix various lake maethods myself yet, so this is just a thought. You might try loading your original sims2 and place the pool layer that you are looking for. Not with walls mind you but by placing 4 strips of pool around a rectangle and then deleting those strips so that when you lower the terrain you have that pool layer left behind (doesn't work in NL of course that is why you do it in original) Save the lot and exit. Restart in NL and try to finish the look you want. Let me stress to only layout the pool layer in original. Don't try to shap the lake, add coloring to the lakebed, edges, pool tools. the more you do in your orinigal game files the more stuff that can go wrong when loading it to NL.

Hello Kopperman (just to say Hi)

Hi all,
Just additional references here, what Kopperman meant by "doing more stuffs" may be talking about the use of "boolprop constrainfloorelevation cheat" on shaping the lake/pool or elese.

I have finally found an answer to your swimable lake troubles with NL. Be warned this will involve altering your walls.txt file. After more testing and fiddling I will probably write an addition for your walls.txt but for now this is how it is done for those comfortable enough making their own alteration.

Go to your walls.txt and under pool wall (should be wall 29) Change the deleteTool option from levelRoom to partition. Then when you load your game and are ready to build your swimmable lake make a nice big rectangular pool (You can try other shapes but you have to be a bit more careful) Then delete your pool. ctrl delete not undo. It will appear the pool is gone; but because the walls have been set to be deleted by the partition tool and not the pool tool the walls will still be there underground, and so will a nice layer of pool water. Just lower your terrain and have fun playing around with it. Note that the walls are still there and if you lower the terrain to the edges and such they will show up and be a bit ugly. So a tip for those that don't regularly use this type "lake" use fencing around your pool before you delete so that you know where the edges are.

A bonus is that you can build anything you want under the water. Add stones, trees, make a castle for mersims. Make it deep and have multiple lvl house in there.

The bad news is that often when you save and reload the water layer no longer shows up. Play, practice, share. I will keep working to see if I can figure it out better.

The NL pool water layer is just a deformable layer right above the pool block.
The water core is like something stuck to the pool underground level.

Lol, can switching back to the original wall.txt after doing all those building things work and then use some wavy-looking transparent tiles to make it like a pool/lake or else?



Update:

even though the pool water layer is separable from the water content graphically, yet it ended up moved down to the water core after saving and reloading, similar to "The bad news is that often when you save and reload the water layer no longer shows up." :sci:



Update2:

Kopperman,

I've followed the wall modification you specified for wall.txt.
Actually, the wavy pool water layer didn't disappear but just realigns back to the water core. So, basically, the resultant phenomenon is the same as the non-wall.txt-modding way.

So far, both ways can only separate the pool layer at least graphically while still in the game. However, after saving and reload the lot, the pool water layer restick back to the water core.

[QUOTE=Bigpimpin15]You can put some water in using the water tool and add a diving board or ladder it doesn't look the best but its effective and looks like a kindof sorta lake/QUOTE]

I tried doing this in my game and it didn't work- the sims refused to use the ladder and it dropped out of the queue.

reply to niol: I am confused by what you did to apparently use the pool and water tools at the same time as shown in the picture. What, exactly, did you do?

Ellatrue,

"Normally, it takes a floor below for the move-objects-enabled pool accessaries to work. In other words, the pool water surface is actually like an inverted foundation where the sims are doing their swimming animations (connected by pool accessaries but not the pool)"
So, in your case, you may want to add a foundation and place the pool accessories (the ladder and the dive-board) on that foundation with the moveobject cheat ("moveobjects on", turn it off with "moveobjects off" after it's done). You need that extra level which is accomplished here by the foundation. This has something to do with how the pool accessories work but not the water tool or the pool itself.
After all, if you use the water tool alone, your sims are quite likely to swim under the water... But if this's what you're looking for, I think it's funs...! :moose: I surely do that for funs!

As for the one I showed above, it was made under the base game. the pool layers weren't great enough to be a lake for me while the water from the water tool is unbelievably stationary! So, I combine them together to get a wavy lake! Yet, if the sims has to swim above the "water", you'll need an invisible fake layer to do that, and that's what I did I added a level made of eddie's almost invisible tiles only one-click lower than the uppermost pool layer in order to get the sims to swim above the "water"... The presently biggest glitch of this approach is the ugly glitch of the tiles is still too visible in-game, just like any other situations... But, I can't do a thing to that yet.

If that glitch cannot be fixed, I think Maxis should have at least allowed it to be recolourable. But you know how dump Maxis is, right? $ seems to be all it can see...

When you say it needs a floor below it, do you mean a) floor tiles b)flat surface or c) 1 story?

I don't think so, but there is a lot of pressure in the industry-and they are with EA now...

I remember when they released Simlife, they didn't bother with any protections for the program or anything- there was just a little sheet of paper that said, "we trust you".... I was crazy about that game as a kid- but back to the topic

Yes, I meant a level/story such as a deck/ a foundtion/ a block of walls. The moveobject-enabled pool accessories have to be on the upper base of this level/story in order to allow sims to use the lower base to swim.

So, basically in other words, the pool is regarded as 2 level/stories deep.